Keyers

A keyer lays one picture on top of another — a logo, a lower third, a green-screen presenter, a picture-in-picture. CastPad gives you both kinds your switcher has, in the Palettes page:

• Upstream keys (USK) are mixed into the M/E before the transition — so they ride along with cuts and auto-transitions, and you can fly them around with DVE.
• Downstream keys (DSK) sit on top of the program output, after everything else — perfect for a bug or a permanent lower third that should stay put through transitions.

The confusing part of any keyer is the difference between arming a key and putting it on air. CastPad keeps those as three distinct actions, so untangle them once:

Action	What it does
KEY n / BKGD	Includes this keyer (or the background) in the next transition. Lights next. Nothing happens on air until you take the transition.
ON / AIR	Cuts the keyer on or off right now, on its own. Lights on-air.
TIE	DSK only — ties the key so it transitions with the next take instead of cutting on its own.

Next transition vs on air

In the Upstream Keys section, the KEY tabs (KEY 1…KEY N) select which keyer you’re editing; the on-air keyer’s tab is lit too. On the right are the three action buttons:

• BKGD — put the background into the next transition.
• KEY n — put this keyer into the next transition (lights next).
• ON / AIR — cut this keyer on or off immediately (lights on-air).

These do not mean the same thing. Arming a key with KEY n changes what your next transition will do; ON / AIR changes the picture now. If a key won’t appear when you expect, check which of the two you actually pressed.

Quick keyer cards on the Switcher page

You don’t have to open the Palettes page for everyday on-air work — the Switcher page carries condensed cards with the same controls.

• USK (M/E) card — one stacked pair per upstream keyer: the top button is an instant ON AIR toggle (cuts the key on or off right now), and the bottom button is KEY n (includes that keyer in the next transition). A BKGD column sits alongside for arming the background into the next take.
• DSK card — one row per downstream keyer: [DSK n] [TIE] [rate] [ON AIR] [AUTO] — tie it to the next take, see its rate, cut it on air, or run its own DSK transition.

For the full picture of these cards and how to add or arrange them, see the Cards guide.

Key types

Each upstream keyer has its own key type tabs: LUMA · CHROMA · PATTERN · DVE. Pick the type, then fill in its controls. Fill Source (the picture the key shows) is common to all of them.

LUMA

A luminance key — bright areas of the Key Source become solid, dark areas become transparent.

• Fill Source and Key Source pickers.
• Mask — toggle on to crop the key to a rectangle, then set Top/Bottom and Left/Right.
• Pre Multiplied Key — toggle. When off, you get Clip, Gain and Invert key to dial in the cut by hand.

CHROMA

A colour (green-screen) key. On capable devices this is the advanced chroma keyer:

• Chroma Sample — turn it on to reveal a 16:9 sample pad. Drag a box on the picture to pick the colour you’re keying out — on-screen sampling, no guessing at numbers — with a Preview toggle and a sampled-colour swatch.
• Key Adjustments (with Reset) — Foreground, Background, Key Edge.
• Chroma Correction (Reset) — Spill Suppression, Flare Suppression.
• Color Adjustments (Reset) — Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, RGB.

Older devices show the basic chroma controls instead: Hue, Gain, Y suppress, Lift, and a Narrow switch.

PATTERN

Keys a shape out of the fill. Uses the same 18-pattern icon grid as wipes, plus Invert, Size, Symmetry, Softness and Position X / Y.

DVE

The flying picture-in-picture keyer — its own editor, covered next.

The DVE fly-key editor

Move, don’t jump

ATEM Software Control snaps DVE and SuperSource layouts into place instantly. CastPad glides between your saved positions — pick a speed (fast cut → slow glide), choose smooth easing or a hard cut, and the same engine drives both your upstream-key flying key and SuperSource. No keyframing, no macros.

This is the richest control in CastPad, built for touch.

Animate · Easing · Speed (in the header) control how moves play:

• Animate — when on, every move (preset, snap recall, Run To) glides to the target instead of snapping. Turn it off for an instant cut.
• Easing — smooth cubic ease-in-out (slow start → fast middle → gentle stop) vs linear; dimmed while Animate is off.
• Speed — a slider from 1.0 to 5.0 (snaps to 3.0), mapping roughly 900 → 220 ms.

This animation setting is shared with SuperSource — set it once and it applies to both. See SuperSource.

Tip

You can fly these positions one-handed from the USK DVE card on the Switcher page — add it with + Card → USK DVE (it’s an optional add-on card, not a built-in one). See Moving without a cut for changing the picture with no cut.

Preset grid — quick layouts as mini 16:9 buttons:

• Row 1 — PiP in the four corners, plus Left / Right halves.
• Row 2 — quarter-screen in the four corners, plus Center 50% and Full.
• Row 3 — four exit / vanish directions (the box slides off-screen, red arrows), plus two snap slots.
• Snap slots — an empty slot shows a dashed ＋: tap it to save the current box. Tap a filled slot to recall it (animated); long-press (600 ms) to delete. Tap empty to save current, long-press to delete.

Visual canvas — a 16:9 canvas with a draggable box that shows the fill source label:

• Drag the body to move (Position X/Y), snapping to centre and the four edges with green guides.
• Drag a corner to resize (snaps to 0.25 / 0.5 / 0.75 / 1.0).
• Drag an edge to crop, when Mask is on.
• Everything syncs live, two-way with the switcher and any other connected clients.

Position / Size / Rotation:

• Position X / Y (−16…16).
• Size X / Y (0…5), with a 🔗 link (on by default) that locks the aspect ratio.
• Rotation is shown disabled — the device doesn’t support rotating a keyer here.

Mask — crop the flying box (top/bottom 0–38, left/right 0–52 in DVE coordinates).

Shadow — toggle on to reveal a circular light-source dial: drag the ☀ dot around for angle (0–360°) and altitude (10–100), or set Shadow angle and Shadow altitude directly.

Border — toggle on for an outline around the box:

• Color swatch with H / S / L.
• Border style — bevel types (disabled on models without bevel, e.g. Constellation HD / Mini).
• Outer / Inner width (0–16) and Outer / Inner softness.
• Border opacity.
• Bevel position / softness.

Keyframes — animate between two stored boxes:

• Set A and Set B store the current box; Rate sets the move length.
• Run To: A / B / Full — play to a stored box (A/B disabled until stored) or to full-screen, with a live running highlight for the move.
• Run To Infinite — a 3×3 direction grid: eight outward arrows fly the box off-screen, the two centre buttons collapse it inward.

Flying other key types

LUMA, CHROMA and PATTERN keyers that support flying get a Flying Key toggle. Turn it on to reveal the same Position/Size block (rotation disabled) and the same keyframe / Run To / infinite-grid tools as the DVE keyer — so any key type can glide, not just DVE.

Downstream keys (DSK)

If your switcher has downstream keyers, each one gets its own card (DSK 1, DSK 2…) in the right column:

• Top row — Rate (seconds:frames) on the left; on the right, TIE (lights next), ON / AIR (lights on-air) and AUTO (runs the DSK transition).
• Fill Source and Key Source pickers.
• Mask rows, when present.
• Pre Multiplied Key toggle; when off, Clip, Gain and Invert key.

A DSK sits on top of program, so it stays put through your upstream cuts and transitions — exactly what you want for a station bug or a persistent lower third.

Next: Audio